The oldForum link is busted. So here is a copy of the text I retrieved via wayBackMachine. I couldn’t bare to see this gem of a text fade into archives alone. Someone can feel free to dress it up with formatting. I’m starting another playthrough via backwards compatibility on xbox one so I wanted to look it up.

The ideal playthrough
So, there are a lot of newer people just getting into the game, and there are still a lot of ways to wind-up over or under-leveled for the area you want to play. I’ve recently gone through a new playthrough, and I thought I’d share my thoughts on what I think would be the best way to access all of the DLCs while staying as close to the surrounding mission level as possible.

This guide assumes the behavior of patch 1.41 is in effect.

Playthrough 1
The only thing you need to worry about here is keeping an eye on the level of the story mission.

Arid Badlands:
In general, do all or most of the side-missions until you defeat Sledge, and then move-on into the Dah Headlands. Level 18-20 by the Headlands.

New Haven/Rust Commons:
Once at New Haven, head out to find Tannis. Be sparing with your side-missions, and only do them if you need to level-up. 23 - 25 by the time you Seek out Tannis, 26 - 27 by the time you make the Secret Rendezvous at Jaynistown.

The goal here is to be done with PT 1 at about level 32 - 35, depending on how many Lance and Guardians you can skirt past at the end.

Playthrough 2
Playthrough 2 is really the keystone to everything subsequent. Think of PT 1 as the introduction, and PT 2 as the real meat of the game. You’ll get a better feel for your character, and start to specialize and make your build distinct.
Plus, completing PT 2 enables the global scaling for the main game, DLC1 and DLC 4.

The same formula used in PT 1 applies here, except that we have Knoxx sitting out there with a hard starting point of level 51.

Dahl Headlands:
I usually do most of the side-missions here, but I try to reach New Haven around level 42.

New Haven/Rust Commons:
I like to reach New Haven at 42, and then make-sure I’m at Jaynistown in Rust Commons East at about level 46 (basically as soon as I’ve killed Krom and handed that piece to Tannis, I head over to do the “Secret Rendezvous” mission.)
Rakk Hive and Taylor Kobb are about 47. Old Haven - Salt Flats and beyond will be around 48-50.

The goal, then, will be to finish PT 2 as close to level 50 as possible.

My last run left me at level 52 after defeating the Destroyer. I skipped nearly all side-missions after the Headlands, and dodged as many fights in the Descent and Eridian Promontory as I could, since Lance and Guardians give a ton of XP.

This actually put me at a good level for the bosses and encounters along the way. I was matched-level with the Rakk Hive and nearly everything afterward, and the Destroyer fight was long despite the 2 level difference. Update: Since the real-time scaling for the Main Game now kicks in when you reach the Vault, the Destroyer will adjust relative to your level, and due to the way this adjustment works, he will actually be two levels above you, now, rather than being stuck at 50 like the olden days.

Moxxie PT 2.
The way Moxxie acts toward you and some of the things she says in Knoxx imply that the player has gone through her trials prior to starting Knoxx. This also gives a little reprieve from the story-focused structure, and awards a free skill point.

I actually leveled-up from my run of the Prove Yourself mission, leaving me at level 53 going into Knoxx. This was mostly due to challenges I completed while in the arenas. Leveling up from this a rare occurrence.

Knoxx PT 2
Knoxx PT 2 hard-starts at 50-51, and the initial stages can be very challenging for a level 50 player. Being a level or two above will leave it interesting without it being punishingly difficult for a player who still has the largely hodge-podge gear that comes from minimal farming.

I entered at 53 and found I was on-level for nearly all of the key areas. I may have been a level above the first shock-trooper barricade, but that fight is ridiculous when you’re proper level, so the difficulty felt about normal.

I was 54-55 going through Lockdown, which is on-par with the enemies there, and 56 when I got to General Knoxx, which was on-par with him.

The Gen. Knoxx fight was a good challenge with my mediocre gear, and the level I was at.
I should note that I sharply avoided doing almost any side-missions.

Killing Knoxx leveled me up to 57.

Loot Larceny
With the main story mission of Knoxx done, (and the patch 1.41 in effect) there are no more hard level starts left to worry about.

The only concern now is that there are elements of DLC 4 that reference DLC 1, so to keep the story consistent, do Zombie Island PT 2 before you do Robolution PT 2.

My first playthrough post-scaling-patch left me at level 66 when the last Clap Trap had fallen and all was said and done.

Robolution gives us a nice bookend to stop on, and from here we have the entire main game and all DLCs in real-time scaling, and we can go back and do all the side-missions we left behind, and have fun farming for uber-1337 gear, as well as return to PT 1 for skillpoints and backpack SDUs.

Arid Badlands
Basically everything until you kill Sledge, then head into the Dahl Headlands.
Do Shock Crystal Harvest and Moe and Marley for the artifacts; you’ll want them.

Dahl Headlands
I usually skip the Ludicrous Speedway and Skagzilla, the former because Scythids freak me out, and the latter because I usually don’t have the ammo.
I make sure to do Ghosts of the Vault for the artifact.

New Haven
I’ll do Corrosive Crystal Harvest and King Tossing on PT 1, because the artifact is important and the Spy can be a very nice SMG if it spawns with good stats.
I’ll sometimes skip it in PT 2 depending on what my level is.

Rust Commons West / Crazy Earl
Seek out Tannis, then find Crazy Earl. Do Get off My Lawn for Earl and then Hair of the Dog in Treacher’s Landing. Once you come back he’ll send you off to Krom’s Canyon. You don’t need to do the Explosives Lesson mission. Go ahead and do it if you’re under-leveled for Krom’s Canyon, though Treacher’s Landing will probably take care of that.

Krom’s Canyon
I do all the side-missions here: Two Wrongs Make a Right is the Reaver mission, which is the second half of that zone, and you find a Claptrap rescue mission and can get all the dog food for Earl Needs Food… Badly, while making your way to Reaver.

Rust Commons East
I tend to skip the Middle of Nowhere missions entirely, and head straight to Jaynistown once I get the Secret Rendezvous mission. If you’re hurting for levels, the Middle of Nowhere missions will open-up about this time (starting with: Middle of Nowhere No More from Helena Pierce,) so do a few of those until you’re on-level again.

Trash Coast
I head here as soon as I’m done with Taylor Kobb. I go in, fight the Rakk Hive and then I leave. This place can over-level you quickly. There are a lot of missions in here, most from the Middle of Nowhere, but there will be plenty of time to do them later.

Old Haven
You’ll usually be a little under-leveled for this mission when you get it, so wait until you have Not Without my Claptrap from Tannis before you head here. This will let you do it in one trip, and get the Claptrap rescue while you’re at it. I usually do the Bandit Brothers: 3 Keys mission for the heck of it; since I pass through the needed areas, anyway, and a brief sojourn back to the Headlands is always fun.

Salt Flats-beyond
From here it’s largely plot-missions. Avoid killing too many enemies if you can avoid them, as it’s easy to over-level off of Guardians and Lance.
…

Knoxx:

T-Bone
Build the Monster, fight the Assassins, and get going to the Tollway.

Tollway
Drop the roadblock.

Fathoms
Go find Moxxie and get the Racer

Ridgeway
Drop the two roadblocks and reach the Sunken Sea.

Sunken Sea
Enter Lockdown Palace. Feel free to look around a little for some chests on the way to it, but be warned, Drifters give a ton of XP.

Lockdown
Rescue Athena and get back out.

Athena’s missions
Once you’ve rescued Athena and gotten back to T-Bone, she’ll send you back to Ridgeway, which will then send you back to Sunken Sea.
You can hit-up Kyros and Typhon now, but killing both of them on the same character will cause them to stop spawning. Not killing them will prevent you from being able to fight Ajax as a side-mission later, so make your choice. If you join a player who has This Bitch is Payback Part 2 active (the Ajax mission,) you can get Ajax spawning in your game without having to complete Part 1 (the Kyros / Typhon mission.)

Once you have the code, return to T-Bone and she’ll send you to the Fathoms, which will then take you to Road’s End.
Kill Knoxx, raid the armory and return to T-Bone.
…
…

You’re free to do it as you like, but this is the formula I’ve had the most success with in terms of staying on level as much as possible.

Special note: While in a vehicle, you will receive substantially less experience than you would otherwise.
Special notes on dealing with over-leveling: http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com…6&postcount=16
New Special Note: Jaredhite’s tool for fixing glitches and adding replayability: http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com…d.php?t=114222 – This can allow you to reset your level to your current main-game mission, which can be handy if you’ve accidentally over-leveled too far.

Useful to read ths guide, as i may play the game through again as Hunter - only been Roland up to now.

have to say though my approach last time was pretty simple and more or less worked - i played everything on PL1, then ignored all non-essential missions in PL2 so i could take them on in 2.5 with everything scaled up.

the only downside is that DLC4 - Claptrap’s Revolution - is not very challenging even on PL1 - to make it combative you probably have to try and play out of sequence, eg after the main game, but then the story doesn’t make sense as it incorporates characters from the other DLCs.

VaultHunter101
(So long, and thanks for all the fish!)
November 21, 2015, 1:37pm
#6

roland5001:

the only downside is that DLC4 - Claptrap’s Revolution - is not very challenging even on PL1 - to make it combative you probably have to try and play out of sequence, eg after the main game, but then the story doesn’t make sense as it incorporates characters from the other DLCs.

I’m finding that with Knox on Pt.2, and I skipped the Underdome completely. Part of that was playing the same character in co-op, and part of it was levelling up faster because with Lilith I was tackling main story quests a bit under-levelled, which meant more XP all the time.

Vaulthunter, if you’ve completed the main game on playthrough2, you should now be in ‘2.5’ mode, but the problem is (I think) that Knoxx doesn’t scale up in the same way

VaultHunter101
(So long, and thanks for all the fish!)
January 20, 2019, 11:54am
#8

Nope, not done Pt.2 yet. Having the same thing to some extent with Roland also - going through Pt.2 with either character I can generally take missions when I’m under-levelled, but then end up over-levelled because of the XP from the kills.

One misgiving, won’t doing things in this order prevent you from getting some backpack SDUs? It’s been a while, so my BL1 knowledge isn’t in tip-top shape, but, for example, if you’ve completed main game PT2, you cannot get the SDU in the Lumberyard in Dr Ned for PT2… I believe.

I remember that I would never enter the Vault on PT2 until I had completed all the DLCs a second time, and I’m pretty sure this was why.

“Once the second playthrough is finished, it is impossible to gain any more SDUs from the Claptrap Rescue Missions. The only known legit way for a character in playthrough 2.5 to gain SDUs is to finish the Claptrap Rescue Missions in a multiplayer game hosted by a player who didn’t finish the second playthrough.”

So basically, if you need more backpack, don’t enter the vault on PT2. I’m pretty positive that is what triggers PT2.5. So you can get to the promontory, but go no further. Cheers!

If you finish PT2, then you can still go back to get the PT1 backpack SDU’s at the Lumbar Yard (ZI PT 2) and Tartarus Station (Robolution PT 2). You won’t be able to get those two backpack SDU’s for PT2, so you will max out at 66 slots instead of 72.

I did this just two days ago, and when I finished each of those two DLC PT2 Claptrap Rescue Missions, no items were given. Not even a grenade, just some XP that I couldn’t use.

(removed questionable info)

I mentioned the wrong tool to “fix” this problem. I should have mentioned “Jaredhite’s tool for fixing glitches and adding replayability:” which was in the original post on the old forum.

VaultHunter101
(So long, and thanks for all the fish!)
August 12, 2016, 1:24am
#17

rja:

(Is it OK to mention WillowTree on this site? If not, let me know and I’ll edit it out.)

I’ll let @Kitty_Jo or @Psychichazard answer for this specific situation. In general though, if the context is console-related the answer is no. There is some leeway for PCs, such as the various game mods that add extra maps and so on. Not sure what the official view on PC save editing is though.

Ok sooo. I never seen you explain quite why your skipping all these side quests and killing as least amount of enemies as possible. What is the point of doing that? The first time I played borderlands back in the day, I did playthrough 1 with a little help of a friend but 80% by myself. Then playthrough 2 completely by myself. And all the while I completed EVERY single side mission and killed as many enemies as possible to make sure I was over leveled for the next part of the game. And that made it easier for me. Then after playthrough 2 I did the dlc’s in order: zombie island, moxxi’s, secret armory, then robot revolution. All the while completing everything but a few tedious missions. (Like the “crazy requests from tannis” missions.) And I ended up at level 67. Then after that I would occasionally farm the crab and the armory. And like I said before I did most of that gameplay by myself. And it was never too difficult. So I just don’t have a single clue why your guide is all about staying underleveled the whole time. I know this is old but I stumbled acrossed it and am curious.